Government for the
natives, to wipe out the wrong that has been done to both black and
white under a bastard civilization which has prevailed in Pretoria for
the past fifteen years. The Government which holds down such a large
number of its subjects by treating them as cut-throats and outlaws, will
one day repent bitterly of its sin of misrule."[35]

* * * * *

Tyranny has a genius for creeping in everywhere, and under any and every
form of government. This is being strikingly illustrated in these days.
Under the name of a Republic, the traditions of a Military Oligarchy
have grown up, and stealthily prevailed.

When a nation has no recorded standard of guiding principles of
government, it matters not by what name it may be called--Empire,
Republic, Oligarchy, or Democracy--it may fall under the blighting
influence of the tyranny of a single individual, or a wealthy clique, or
a military despot.

Too much weight is given just now to mere names as applied to
governments. The acknowledged principles which underlie the outward
forms of government alone are vitally important, and by the adherence to
or abdication of these principles each nation will be judged. The
revered name of _Republic_ is as capable of being dragged in the mire
as that of the title of any other form of government. Mere names and
words have lately had a strange and even a disastrous power of
misleading and deceiving, not persons only, but nations,--even a whole
continent of nations. It is needful to beware of being drawn into
conclusions leading to action by associations attaching merely to a
name, or to some crystallized word which may sometimes cover a principle
the opposite of that which it was originally used to express. Such names
and words are in some cases being as rapidly changed and remodelled as
geographical charts are which represent new and rapidly developing or
decaying groups of the human race. Yet names are always to a large part
of mankind more significant than facts; and names and appearances in
this matter appeal to France and to Switzerland, and in a measure to the
American people, in favour of the Boers.

Among the concessions made by Lord Derby in the Convention of 1884, none
has turned out to be more unfortunate than that of allowing the
Transvaal State to resume the title of the "South African Republic." In
South Africa it embodied an impossible ideal; to the outside world it
conveyed a false impression. The title has been the reason of widespread
error with regard to the real nature of the Transvaal Government and of
its struggle with this country. If "Republican Independence" had been
all that Mr. Kruger was striving for, there would have been no war. He
adopted the name, but not the spirit of a Republic. The "Independence"
claimed by him, and urged even now by some of his friends in the British
Parliament, is shown by the whole past history of the Transvaal to be an
independence and a freedom which _involve the enslavement of other men._

A friend writes:--"In order to satisfy my own mind I have been looking
in Latin Dictionaries for the correct and original meaning of 'impero,'
(I govern,) and 'imperium.' The word 'Empire' has an unpleasant ring
from some points of view and to some minds. One thinks of Roman
Emperors, Domitian, Nero, Tiberius,--of the word 'imperious,' and of the
French 'Empire' under Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. The Latin word means
'the giving of commands.' All depends on whether the commands given are
_good_, and the giver of them also good and wise. The Ten Commandments
are in one sense 'imperial.' Now, I think the word as used in the phrase
_British Empire_ has, in the most modern and best sense, quite a
different savour or flavour from that of Napoleon's Empire, or the
Turkish or Mahommedan Empires of the past. It has come to mean the
'Dominion of Freedom' or the 'Reign of Liberty,' rather than the giving
of despotic